Printer problems with Leopard

squirri · #1 October 28th, 2007, 02:30 PM

I have an Epson Stylus R220 which I use for printing CD/DVDs. I did an Upgrade from Tiger to Leopard then fired up the Epson Print CD program. Everything OK until I tried to print a CD, when it told me that the driver needed to print to the CD tray was not available. After much mucking about I was able to get the Epson Print Assistant software to reinstall(downloaded the version marked September 2007 from the Epson site).

I can print CD's, but the print area has shifted to the right(more than the printing position tweaks will allow.

If I boot back up into Tiger from my Superduper cloned volume it all works correctly, so it's not the printer.

The way printers are handled seems to have changed rather a lot in Leopard - the old printer setup utility has vanished!

Anyone else with the same problem - and a fix!?!?

dmetzcher · #2 October 28th, 2007, 02:41 PM

I am having a similar problem with my Lexmark X5470 printer.
Printer Setup Utility is gone, and this is causing all applications that attempt to print using this printer to immediately crash.
I installed the latest driver, from 9/27/07, but it appears that it hasn't been updated for Leopard, because it still tells me to add the printer to Printer Setup Utility's list, which I assume it is trying to do on it's own as it installs the printer software. I had to select the driver manually for the printer, but it still doesn't work.

The same is true for FlashPaper, though I am not planning on upgrading this, so I can live with it, as I have never used it before.

My assumption is that I have to wait for Lexmark to realize that Apple released a new version of the Mac OS and, in turn, release a new version of their printer installer. Is this correct? Does anyone know how good they are about doing this? Not being able to print is a real hassle.

DeltaMac · #3 October 28th, 2007, 04:36 PM

Lexmark has included newer drivers standard in Leopard.
Here's a relevant list, which includes the X5400 series. It shows vers 1.5
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306684

Also, the Lexmark site has a download for that printer, vers 1.0.3 (from 27-Sep-06, not 07 - so way too old.)

For the Epson R220, same result, newer drivers are included with Leopard.
Related software, such as the epson label printer software probably still needs to be updated for Leopard.

You should try some of the other software, such as Discus, or even The Print Shop, both of which claim to support most any direct-to-disk printer. Or, wait for Epson to update their direct-to-disk software.

The Printer Setup Utility is still in Leopard, but is not user accessible, other than through the Add Printer function in your System Preferences/Print & Fax pane. That's where you go to add a printer. It should work much the same as for most USB printers. Connect your printer to the USB port. Cycle the printer off, then back on. Open that Print & Fax pref pane, and you should see the printer already without needing to do anything. Restart if you want to try that, too.

dmetzcher · #4 October 28th, 2007, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeltaMac

Lexmark has included newer drivers standard in Leopard.
Here's a relevant list, which includes the X5400 series. It shows vers 1.5
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306684

Also, the Lexmark site has a download for that printer, vers 1.0.3 (from 27-Sep-06, not 07 - so way too old.)

For the Epson R220, same result, newer drivers are included with Leopard.
Related software, such as the epson label printer software probably still needs to be updated for Leopard.

You should try some of the other software, such as Discus, or even The Print Shop, both of which claim to support most any direct-to-disk printer. Or, wait for Epson to update their direct-to-disk software.

The Printer Setup Utility is still in Leopard, but is not user accessible, other than through the Add Printer function in your System Preferences/Print & Fax pane. That's where you go to add a printer. It should work much the same as for most USB printers. Connect your printer to the USB port. Cycle the printer off, then back on. Open that Print & Fax pref pane, and you should see the printer already without needing to do anything. Restart if you want to try that, too.

I did exactly what you said. I disconnected the printer, went into the printers preference panel, removed the Lexmark printer, and then reconnected the printer. I powered it on, then off, then on again. Then, I added it via the preference panel, selecting "5400" from the list, as I did before. I opened TextEdit, typed "test", attempted to print, and TextEdit crashed.

What am I doing wrong? The computer has been powered off several times since the upgrade

dmetzcher · #5 October 29th, 2007, 12:03 AM

Also, the same problem (crashing apps) happens when I attempt to print to a PDF. It's like printing is broken in general. I can print to PDF, and I can "Preview", if I click that button in the print dialog either.

dmetzcher · #6 October 29th, 2007, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmetzcher

Also, the same problem (crashing apps) happens when I attempt to print to a PDF. It's like printing is broken in general. I can print to PDF, and I can "Preview", if I click that button in the print dialog either.

If I go back into the Print & Fax preference panel, and remove the Lexmark printer, I can print to PDF and use the "Preview" (in Preview) feature. But I have to remove the printer in order to get this to work.

Is there a way to completely remove the Lexmark software that I installed before? Would that help at all?

squirri · #7 October 29th, 2007, 02:13 AM

I did download the latest driver from Epson. However, when it had nearly finished it said that it could not add the printer due to an error(I guess Epson have not twigged yet that the way printers are added has changed).

I tried the on/off cycling. I now have 3 flavours of Epson driver to choose from - 2 Epson ones(I guess the original bundled with Leopard plus the one I installed) and a Project Gutenberg one which I think is what comes with CUPS.

I tried switching off the printer and then removing it from the Print/Fax prefs. When I powered it back up again it got added back in automatically. Sometimes Mac OS is too clever for its' own good!

I think you are right though - the one piece of software missing from the Epson site seems to be the PrintCD program. I'll try and flag this up on their site.

DeltaMac · #8 October 29th, 2007, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmetzcher

Is there a way to completely remove the Lexmark software that I installed before? Would that help at all?

You could remove the Lexmark folder from /Library/Printers
Use Spotlight to find any files with Lexmark, or X5400 series, and delete those.
Then, do a custom install of just the Lexmark printer software from your Leopard DVD.

When the install is complete - try a Repair Disk Permisssions from your Disk Utility. Leopard appears to take Much longer than Tiger to do repair permissions. I have done that twice, and each took nearly an hour to finish.